William Mitchel, fresh out of college in 1951, decided to enlist rather than be drafted to serve in Korea in the Army, and he wound up in the Marines, one of the few in his group of recruits to pass muster as an officer. He arrived in Korea in February 1952 and met up with the First Marine Division, which had fought their way out of the debacle at the Chosin Reservoir. Mitchel was in command of an 80-millimeter mortar battalion. Trading artillery rounds with the enemy became a daily routine; one day, Mitchel lost a number of his men when the mess tent was hit. His last act as a Marine was a visit back home with the mother of a corpsman, killed in Korea, whom he and his brother grew up with in Chicago.